Today is the eighth birthday of this here blog, which is kind of incredible when you think about it. I certainly didn’t think this thing would last this long.

But this will be the last birthday I celebrate here. As much as I hate to admit it, I just don’t have time (or energy) to sit down and write like I used to. Information Leafblower started as a music blog in based in NYC and then became a documentary about how my life fell apart and the steps I took to piece it all back together and eventually thrive here in Washington, D.C. It’s an incredible time capsule and I’ll keep it online and read it over every once in a while. I hope you will too.

Thanks to everyone that passed through my little corner of the interwebs these last 8 years. In the future I’ll still be posting regularly on my photo site as well as occasionally posting about Morrissey and the Celtics on my Tumblr. And there’s always Twitter and Facebook.

A few years ago when I shot Bruce Springsteen at the Verizon Center, I happened to strike up a conversation with the photog standing next to me. It was Linda Davidson from the Washington Post. She was incredibly nice and very gracious, offering me some career advice and just generally being very cool by answering any and all questions I threw her way. This went against most of my interactions with other photogs when I was on assignment for DCist. A majority of the photojournalists I tried to speak to looked down their nose at “bloggers.” Not Linda, she talked me ear off until the lights went down and Bruce strode on to the stage. I didn’t forget that.

Last year when I was covering the White House Correspondents Dinner for Washingtonian, there was a big kerfuffle at the door which kept many photogs from getting a good spot to shoot the red carpet arrivals. Linda got caught up in this and was one of the last people let in the door, meaning she had one of the worst vantage points to shoot from. I was standing in front of her on a stool much taller than hers, so I offered to switch stools with her so she could shoot over my shoulder and still get some front page material for the Post. She was very thankful and even sent an email that night (while she was editing photos on site!) to my assignment editors at the Post telling them what I had done and how big a help it had been for her.

Today word got out that she and fellow Postie Leila Fadel were arrested in Egypt while they were covering the demonstrations and political unrest. I sincerely hope they are OK and will be released soon. My thoughts are with them.

I generally try and stay away from politics on my various corners of the interwebs (there are many other people out there that do it better than I ever could) but I just wanted everyone to see what great work Jon Stewart is doing here. This is obviously a subject that is very near and dear to my heart.

I lived four blocks from the World Trade Center and living in that neighborhood in the aftermath of 9/11 was not very easy. EPA representatives lied to our faces, telling us the air at ground zero and in our neighborhood was “100% safe to breathe” and we would not risk any health risks by living in the area. Anything to keep panic down and tempers from flaring. It was disgusting and something I’ve never stopped being angry about.

I can’t count how many nights since then I would lie awake and wonder what my health would be like in my 50’s and 60’s after living down there with that smoldering rubble. I am very lucky to be in much better shape than the gentlemen featured above. To deny these guys and everyone else involved in the ground zero rescue and recovery any and all health benefits is beyond comprehension. But I guess the Republicans have other priorities.

When I started my little corner of the interweb back in 2003, I certainly didn’t think I would still be going strong in 2009. In fact, I’m busier than ever these days. But I’m increasingly finding myself editing photos when I am in front of the computer instead of blogging. This is not necessarily a bad thing. My photography has really taken off in the last 18 months or so. It’s put my already busy schedule into overdrive (and this isn’t even taking my day job into account) and because of that, down time has become a luxury I don’t really have. So after a lot of thought I have decided to shut down the leafblower as we know it. Kind of.
Let me explain.
Since I only seem to write about the shows I shoot these days, it only makes sense for me to take that content over to the newly launched blog at Photokyle.com so I can aggregate it all there. We’ve been working for the last few weeks (and by “we” I mean my super-awesome tech guy Aaron & I) to get my new blog up and running. It’s still somewhat in beta, so please let me know if you find something that doesn’t work as advertised. You can subscribe to the Photokyle RSS feed here. Do it!
I certainly can’t update two blogs these days, but I think I can still find time for a blog and a Tumblr. So sometime later this week, we’ll redirect informationleafblower.com over to my Tumblr. I know some people don’t like the Tumblr format, but I love being able to blog things so easily and quickly. It’s been a lifesaver for me in the last few months and reinvigorated me as far as writing on the web. I kind of want to reboot things over there just get back to sharing things I like on the web for my friends as opposed to chasing page views and trying to be a “music blogger.” So head on over to the new information leafblower and check out what I’ve been up toover there. Here’s the RSS feed or if you have a Tumblr, you can just follow me.
I hope to see you in my new digs.

You might think I haven’t been updating the leafblower because I am lazy.
Far from it.
Here are a few of the things I’ve done since updating the blog last week.
Last night I had the amazing experience of shooting Bruce Springsteen at the Verizon Center for DCist. See the full photo set here.
Sunday night I shot Dan Deacon & Future Islands at the 9:30 Club for washingtonpost.com. See the full photo set here.
I spent Saturday fighting the heat and the rain while shooting the DC101 Chili Cookoff for DCist for the third year in a row. It’s one of my favorite events in DC. See the full photo set here.
Late last week I shot Mastodon at the 9:30 Club for washingtonpost.com. See the full photo set here.
In case you hadn’t noticed, my photography services are in increasingly high demand, which is an absolutely amazing feeling. However, it doesn’t leave much time for blogging (especially when you factor the day job in there too). Not sure what the future holds for the leafblower. I don’t want to give it up completely but something’s got to give. Stay tuned true believers…

A Jersey City councilman has reportedly been arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington D.C. nightclub.

The New York Daily News reports in Sunday’s editions that two-term Jersey City councilman Steve Lipski has been charged with simple assault.
The newspaper says 44-year-old Lipski was removed from a place called the Nightclub 9:30 on Friday night.
That’s after club staffers saw him relieve himself onto the crowd from a second floor balcony during a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band.

About

Kyle Gustafson is a web editor, freelance photographer and blogger based in Washington D.C. Online since 2003, Information Leafblower features photos, links and commentary about a wide range of topics, most frequently music, sports and photography. And, cat pictures. Lots of cat pictures.